Is your job a heavy cross to bear?

Today’s English
August 11th, 2017

When doing a work needs much skill, effort, time we say that it’s difficult, problematic, complicated, hard, strenuous, tough, arduous, laborious, tedious, tiresome, troublesome, toilsome, hellish, Herculean, Himalayan and backbreaking.  People who are very difficult to deal with are said to be unhelpful, uncooperative, stubborn, obstinate, bullheaded and pigheaded.  Difficult times in your life are those moments which are unfavorable, unfortunate, inconvenient, adverse, bad, terrible, dreadful, hard, nightmarish, direful and distressing.

How to talk about difficult things and situations in life?
If something or somebody is very difficult to deal with, you can say that it /  he is a heavy cross to bear, a hard or tough nut to crack and a bitter pill to swallow.

1. This new responsibility is really a heavy cross to bear.
2. Nobody can answer this question, you know, it’s a hard nut to crack.

Albatross is a large white bird living near the Pacific and South Atlantic oceans.  But its name is used to refer to any person who is giving trouble to you and from whom you want to be free. It can all so be used for a troublesome thing.

1. My uncle is really an albatross and treats me like a slave. 
2. Do you take me as an albatross?
3. Corruption is an albatross to many countries even today.

There is also another beautiful phrase – the tip of the iceberg. It refers to a small noticeable part of the problem whose full unknown real size is still much bigger. 
1. The strike of Government employees shows you only the tip of the iceberg.
2. What you know is only the tip of the iceberg. Soon you will see the remaining.

3. The merit of all things lies in their difficulty.
- Alexandre Dumas, “The Three Musketeers”